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Bitcoin Price Falls Beyond $550, Recovers

Last Updated
Samburaj Das
Last Updated

 Bitcoin price plunged over $100 today, dropping to a low of $546.84 on the Bitstamp Price Index (BPI).

Following weeks of a surging rally that scaled to two-year highs, bitcoin price fell $100 today in a week that saw prominent bitcoin exchange Bitfinex suffer outages. The result for the EU referendum will also be revealed Friday morning UCT, with some observers pointing to the decreasing fear of a Brexit also dissuading investors from electing bitcoin as their choice store of value.

The Bitstamp Price Index struck a low of $546.84 in the early hours of Thursday morning. Less than 10 hours since the low at 01:40, BPI revealed bitcoin trading to the US Dollar at $665 at 15:35, on Wednesday afternoon.

At the time of publishing, bitcoin price is recovering since the plunge, trading at $611.06.

BPI Bitstamp 611.06

Bitfinex Outage

Prominent bitcoin exchange Bitfinex was rendered offline multiple times on June 21, a day which saw bitcoin price plunge from $780 to $700 overnight, falling further down to $650. Bitfinex resolved the website’s bugs but the fear had already set in. The uncertainty led to a sell-off, according to Bobby Lee, CEO of Chinese bitcoin exchange BTCC, among the largest in the world.

Speaking to CNBC , Lee stated:

Bitfinex’s website went down and that was a catalyst for people pulling back, cutting positions, locking in gains. There is a waterfall effect where then people are selling, selling, selling.

The Brexit Vote

The growing possibility of the UK voting to stay in the European Union rather than pull away to exit is also seen by some as a factor behind the decline of the price of bitcoin.

At a time when bitcoin price was surging forward, bitcoin payment processor BitPay’s chief commercial officer Sonny Singh stated:

“People are looking at bitcoin as a safe haven, internationally,” referring to the UK wherein he alluded to the uncertainty posed by economic and geopolitical uncertainty leading to positive outlook by investors toward the cryptocurrency.

The influence of a Brexit result influencing price is less likely, however, with a majority of the world’s bitcoin trading value coming from China. Instead, support for the cryptocurrency could be losing its ground underneath it, after rapid gains in recent times.

Regardless, the turbulent days that see fluctuating bitcoin trades are unlikely to see calm anytime soon, with the blocksize halving event looming large.

For a live Bitcoin Price chart, click here.

For today’s daily bitcoin price analysis piece from CCN.com resident analyst Venzen Khaosan, click here.

All time references are in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

Featured image from Shutterstock.